mardi 30 avril 2013

The 11-strong al-Qaeda inspired gang
from Birmingham wanted to use eight suicide bombers in attacks that
could have left thousands dead. The ringleader, Irfan Naseer, 31, was
given five life sentences. A judge said he may never be released,
however, his followers were treated very leniently.

UK Daily Mail Naseer’s group wanted to cause more damage than the 7/7 London bombings and threatened to carry out “another 9/11.”

A judge said their plans had been ‘at
the far end of extreme’ and that they had been determined to carry out
‘mass murder’ to ‘further the aims of Al Qaeda’. But one could walk free
in less than nine years despite having volunteered to strap on an
explosive rucksack and detonate it in a crowded place.

The sentence contrasts with those of
other major plots in which Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists were jailed for a
minimum of 40 years. It means the three men are likely to return to the
neighbourhoods they wanted to destroy before they are even middle aged.

GANG OF 11 JAILED FOR 90 YEARS TOTAL

Irfan Naseer LIFE (18 YEARS MIN)

Irfan Khalid 18 YEARS

Ashik Ali 15 YEARS

Rahin Ahmed 12 YEARS

Bahader Ali 6 YEARS

Mohammed Rizwan 4 YEARS

Mujahid Hussain 4 YEARS

Shaaq Hussain 3 YEARS 4 MONTHS

Khobaib Hussain 3 YEARS 4 MONTHS

Shahid Khan 3 YEARS 4 MONTHS

Naweed Ali 3 YEARS 4 MONTHS

The security services said the
Birmingham cell was responsible for the most serious terrorist
conspiracy since the failed airline liquid bomb plot in 2006.

Naseer, 28, and Irfan Khalid, 31,
travelled to Pakistan where they trained alongside Al Qaeda and learned
how to make homemade explosives. During their stay the pair recorded
martyrdom videos to be released after their deaths in which they praised
hate preacher Abu Qatada.

Irfan
Naseer, Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali held table top sales in Birmingham
where the cash raised would be secretly siphoned off to pay for trips to
Pakistan

Naseer and Khalid told others they
were working for the ‘Al Qaeda number five’ and had been sent back to
Europe to spread their deadly new skills.

The trio recruited eight followers,
four of whom were sent to a Pakistani terror camp as others posed as
bogus charity collectors to raise cash. But the plot was smashed in a
series of police raids that followed a multi-million-pound surveillance
operation in September 2011.